memoration is on 17 October, when the decayed town is thronged with pilgrims to visit his shrine.
At the time of the Papacy at Avignon Bishop Bertrand de Got was elected Pope, and took the title of Clement V. He retained a liking for the place, revisited it several times, and contributed sums towards its completion; and to raise money without having to dip into his own purse instituted a grand Pardon or Jubilee, charged with Indulgences, for the Feast of the Invention of the Cross (3 May). This is still celebrated, and attracts pilgrims to gain the Indulgences, during three days. The vaulting of the church was begun in 1304, and completed by Hugh de Chatillon in the middle of the fourteenth century. The apse is surrounded by five chapels. The windows of the choir, very tall and narrow, are partly walled up, and partly filled with fragments of Renaissance glass. The magnificent Renaissance woodwork choir-stalls, screen, organ-case, and altar-piece are due to Bishop Jean de Mauleon, and date from 1525. In a chapel is the stately tomb of Bishop Hugh de Châtillon, who died in 1352; it is of white marble, and was executed at least a century after his death, probably at the expense of the Cardinal de Foix, to whom also is due the mausoleum of S. Bertrand behind the high altar.
But bishops cannot create a town, even though they enrich a site with a superb cathedral. S. Bertrand de Cominges never thrived, and little by little the bishops tired of it, and then abandoned it for their Château of Alan, near Aurignac; they were rich men, enjoying large revenues, for the diocese of Cominges, in addition to that part which is in France, comprised also the whole of the Val d'Aran—that is to say, thirty-three parishes under the Crown of Spain.
Some of them rarely visited S. Bertrand, some not at all. One of them. Urban de S. Gelos, an ardent Leaguer, only went
